Dan Auerbach - The Painters Keys

There’s a hush… a palpable electric presence radiating from some of the paintings in New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the galleries of the Frick Collection.

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The Wine Drinkard
oil on canvas
1962
40 x 50 inches

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Self Portrait in a Red Vest
oil and mylar on canvas
1971
30 x 36 inches

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Dayananda Saraswati
oil on canvas
30 x 50 inches

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Self Portrait: At Work
oil on canvas
1973
18 x 28 inches

I have spent hours at a time enjoying and analyzing those works, especially when I was studying with my teacher/mentor Francis Criss during the late ’50’s through the early ’70’s. Every time I go back to those galleries… that hushed, electric presence is there, radiating out of the work of Van Eyke, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Bellini, Corot, Pissaro, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Seurat, Matisse, Derain, Picasso… to name some of the giants. It is that visual magic of monumental, timeless figures in exquisitely designed, complex compositions, that have struck me in the heart! To achieve, not copy, that intellectual and emotional visual dart in my work is my focus and goal.